
Terquem |
“I can’t go on, Faltha, I can’t go on,” her voice cracked.
The sound of her little body collapsing in the snow behind him caused him to stop. He didn’t want to turn around. He knew that she was slight of frame, and frail, but she was tough. She was the toughest Halfling he had ever known. But it was too much. It was too much for her, for him, for the others.
Faltha turned slowly, struggling to lift his feet out of the deep snow as he turned, and looked down upon the mass of black curls spread out across the white snow. She had fallen, face first, into the blanket of snow with her arms under her, where she was surely still clutching the satchel close to her chest.
No one spoke, but he knew they had stopped as well. In front of him, Haloran, the wizard, the staunch and tenacious Dwarf, would have had to stop. He would not go on without her. Faltha knew that the Dwarf was in love with the Halfling girl even though they were separated by two decades in age. It hadn’t mattered, to them. And she loved him, in her own way. This was true, even if at times it seemed she didn’t understand how different their love really was. But certainly he would stop.
And Malgoria, the Elven barbarian woman, she would stop, or would she?
Faltha fell to his knees beside the fallen Halfling, and carefully slipped his huge hands under her shoulders. He spoke a prayer, and cast the last of his healing spells on her as he drew her body close to him. Then with all of his strength, he struggled to his feet again. He was old, nearly fifty, and for a half-orc, that was ancient. The effort to stand strained the bones in his knees and stabed at his back like a thousand knives, but he rose, and turned and saw, to his delight, that Malgoria had stopped, and come back to be closer to the rest of them. For a while, when she had continued to increase the distance between her and the rest of them, he had wondered if she would have abandoned them, but she hadn’t. She was back.
Malgoria was nearly the same age as Haloran, and as Elves go she was as different from her own kind as the rest of them were from their's. They were all, in a kind, misfits, outcasts, strangers in their own worlds. Faltha, the aged Half-orc cleric, was a man of peace, a man of contemplation and inner strength. Haloran was the clear thinking and dynamic wizard, a Dwarf with a level head and a mind for arcane mysteries. Then there was Malgoria. She was an Elf, but she was no slender willowy blond–haired siren, no bard, no sorcerer, no. Malgoria was broad, with arms like knotted rope, legs of iron, and a chest that was the envy of any Dwarven woman this side of the Winding River. She had short, red hair that was impossibly thick, standing out from her head like a bright helm of living fire. Her eyes were golden brown, almond shaped and her eyebrows dark and arched like a crescent moon. Her face, like smooth alabaster, was pure, chiseled and perfect. She was powerful and strong, and a force most were never prepared for.
“I’ll take her,” Malgoria said.
“No,” Faltha said as he lifted one leg, his face held tight to not betray the pain in his knees, and pushed forward. “We need you and your sword to be ready. I’ll carry Deeba. She found the crown. She risked more than any of us in carrying it. I’ll carry her, and pray. I’ll pray we are still far enough ahead of them. Let’s keep moving, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll make it home, and then we’ll see if the thing was worth it all.”